Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) Adult Study Protocol: Rationale, Objectives, and Design

IMPORTANCE: SARS-CoV-2 infection can result in ongoing, relapsing, or new symptoms or other health effects after the acute phase of infection; termed post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC), or long COVID. The characteristics, prevalence, trajectory and mechanisms of PASC are ill-defined. The objectives of the Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) Multi-site Observational Study of PASC in Adults (RECOVER-Adult) are to: (1) characterize PASC prevalence; (2) characterize the symptoms, organ dysfunction, natural history, and distinct phenotypes of PASC; (3) identify demographic, social and clinical risk factors for PASC onset and recovery; and (4) define the biological mechanisms underlying PASC pathogenesis. METHODS: RECOVER-Adult is a combined prospective/retrospective cohort currently planned to enroll 14,880 adults aged ≥18 years. Eligible participants either must meet WHO criteria for suspected, probable, or confirmed infection; or must have evidence of no prior infection. Recruitment occurs at 86 sites in 33 U.S. states, Washington, DC and Puerto Rico, via facility- and community-based outreach. Participants complete quarterly questionnaires about symptoms, social determinants, vaccination status, and interim SARS-CoV-2 infections. In addition, participants contribute biospecimens and undergo physical and laboratory examinations at approximately 0, 90 and 180 days from infection or negative test date, and yearly thereafter. Some participants undergo additional testing based on specific criteria or random sampling. Patient representatives provide input on all study processes. The primary study outcome is onset of PASC, measured by signs and symptoms. A paradigm for identifying PASC cases will be defined and updated using supervised and unsupervised learning approaches with cross-validation. Logistic regression and proportional hazards regression will be conducted to investigate associations between risk factors, onset, and resolution of PASC symptoms. DISCUSSION: RECOVER-Adult is the first national, prospective, longitudinal cohort of PASC among US adults. Results of this study are intended to inform public health, spur clinical trials, and expand treatment options

Convergent Margin Tectonics at the Intersection of Geochemistry, Geochronology, and Geodynamics: Insights from the Greater Caucasus

Convergent plate margins serve as the principal locations of lithospheric assembly and destruction within the Earth system. Subduction zones transfer material between the surface and interior of the Earth as they build continents through arc magmatism and recycle oceanic lithosphere back into the mantle. Continental collisions terminate subduction, develop topography, and bring rocks from depth to the surface of the Earth. However, the transition within a convergent margin from subduction to terminal collision is complicated by transient intermediate processes, including marginal basin formation and terrane accretion. This dissertation represents a multi-disciplinary geochemical, geochronologic, and geodynamic exploration of marginal basins and terrane accretion within convergent margins, informed by the spatiotemporal framework that field-based structural geology provides. The problems investigated here are focused on and/or inspired by the Greater Caucasus Mountains, at the northernmost edge of the active Arabia-Eurasia continental collision. The Greater Caucasus represents a long-lived convergent margin spanning the entire Phanerozoic, with the structure of the present-day collisional orogen strongly controlled by prior convergent margin processes, most notably the Jurassic formation and Cenozoic closure of the Caucasus Basin, a marine back-arc basin associated with the Lesser Caucasus volcanic arc.The Caucasus Basin is an example of a back-arc basin that initiates within continental rather than oceanic lithosphere, and the geochemical characteristics of magmatic rocks within continental back-arcs are poorly understood relative to their intraoceanic counterparts. In Chapter 1, I compile published geochemical data from five exemplar modern continental back-arc basins – the Okinawa Trough, Bransfield Strait, Tyrrhenian Sea, Patagonia plateau, and Aegean Sea/Western Anatolia – to establish a geochemical framework for continental back-arc magmatism. This analysis shows that continental back-arcs yield geochemical signatures more similar to arc magmatism than intraoceanic back-arcs do. I apply this framework to published data for Triassic-Jurassic magmatic rocks from the Caucasus convergent margin. My analysis of 40Ar/39Ar and U-Pb ages indicates Permian-Triassic arc magmatism occurred from ~260-220 Ma due to subduction beneath the Greater Caucasus and Scythian Platform. Late Triassic (~220-210 Ma) collision of the Iranian block with Laurasia likely induced trench retreat in the Caucasus region and led to migration of the Caucasus arc and opening of the Caucasus Basin. This activity was followed by Jurassic arc magmatism in the Lesser Caucasus from ~180-140 Ma and back-arc spreading in the Caucasus Basin from ~180-160 Ma. Trace element and Sr-Nd isotopic data from magmatic rocks indicate that Caucasus Basin magmatism is comparable to modern continental back-arcs and that the mantle source to the Lesser Caucasus arc became more enriched at ~160 Ma, likely from the cessation of back-arc spreading.In Chapter 2, I use detrital zircon U-Pb geochronology from Paleozoic-Mesozoic (meta)sedimentary rocks in the Greater Caucasus, along with select zircon U-Pb and Hf isotopic data from coeval igneous rocks, to causally link key magmatic and depositional episodes along the Caucasus convergent margin. Devonian-Carboniferous rocks were deposited prior to accretion of the Greater Caucasus crystalline core onto the Laurussian margin. Permian-Triassic rocks document a period of northward subduction and deposition in the forearc of a volcanic arc in the Northern Caucasus and Scythian Platform. Jurassic rocks record the opening of the Caucasus Basin as a back-arc rift during southward migration of the arc front into the Lesser Caucasus. Cretaceous rocks have few Jurassic-Cretaceous zircons, indicating a period of magmatic quiescence and minimal exhumation within this basin. Late Cenozoic closure of the Caucasus Basin led to the formation of a hypothesized terminal suture. This suture is expected to be within ~20 km of the southern range front of the Greater Caucasus because all analyzed rocks to the north exhibit a provenance affinity with the crystalline core of the Greater Caucasus that defined the northern margin of the Caucasus Basin.Debate over the present-day structure of the Greater Caucasus has focused on an assumed dichotomy between subduction of back-arc basin floored in part by oceanic lithosphere and inversion of extensional structures inherited during rifting in a back-arc basin floored entirely by continental lithosphere. However, orogens resulting from the latter process, intracontinental rift inversion, exhibit a range of first-order structural styles and the underlying causes of variability have not been systematically explored. In Chapter 3, I numerically model intracontinental rift inversion in ASPECT to investigate the impact of rift velocity/thermal structure, rift duration, post-rift cooling, and convergence velocity on the first-order structural style of rift-inversion orogens. My 2D geodynamic models produce orogens that can be categorized using three end-member styles: asymmetric underthrusting (Style AU), distributed thickening (Style DT), and localized polarity flip (Style PF). Although orogens resulting from slow/cold rifts tend to exhibit more localized deformation (Styles AU and PF) than those resulting from hot/fast rifts, the same structural style can be produced using multiple combinations of the parameters investigated here, indicating that the structure of rift-inversion orogens is highly contingent upon the initial conditions prior to inversion. These models indicate that even if no oceanic lithosphere floored the Caucasus Basin, the Greater Caucasus and other rift-inversion orogens can still exhibit structural features reminiscent of subduction-to-collision orogens. This dissertation demonstrates that a multi-disciplinary approach to convergent margin tectonics that combines field-based structural geology, geochronology, geochemistry, and geodynamic modeling can provide key insights into how a critical component of the Earth system evolves over time. The ~500 Myr history of the Caucasus convergent margin is not a haphazard accumulation of random tectonic events; rather, each phase in the evolution of the orogen is driven by conditions inherited from the previous phase. A holistic look at convergent margin systems like the Caucasus using all available datasets and approaches enables one to connect history to process and thus link long-term tectonics to the Earth system as a whole

Episodic evolution of a protracted convergent margin revealed by detrital zircon geochronology in the Greater Caucasus

Convergent margins play a fundamental role in the construction and modification of Earth's lithosphere and are characterized by poorly understood episodic processes that occur during the progression from subduction to terminal collision. On the northern margin of the active Arabia-Eurasia collision zone, the Greater Caucasus Mountains provide an opportunity to study a protracted convergent margin that spanned most of the Phanerozoic and culminated in Cenozoic continental collision. However, the main episodes of lithosphere formation and deformation along this margin remain enigmatic. Here, we use detrital zircon U-Pb geochronology from Paleozoic and Mesozoic (meta)sedimentary rocks in the Greater Caucasus, along with select zircon U-Pb and Hf isotopic data from coeval igneous rocks, to link key magmatic and depositional episodes along the Caucasus convergent margin. Devonian to Early Carboniferous rocks were deposited prior to Late Carboniferous accretion of the Greater Caucasus crystalline core onto the Laurussian margin. Permian to Triassic rocks document a period of northward subduction and forearc deposition south of a continental margin volcanic arc in the Northern Caucasus and Scythian Platform. Jurassic rocks record the opening of the Caucasus Basin as a back-arc rift during southward migration of the arc front into the Lesser Caucasus. Cretaceous rocks have few Jurassic-Cretaceous zircons, indicating a period of relative magmatic quiescence and minimal exhumation within this basin. Late Cenozoic closure of the Caucasus Basin juxtaposed the Lesser Caucasus arc to the south against the crystalline core of the Greater Caucasus to the north and led to the formation of a hypothesized terminal suture. We expect this suture to be within ~20 kilometers of the southern range front of the Greater Caucasus because all analyzed rocks to the north exhibit a provenance affinity with the crystalline core of the Greater Caucasus.This dataset contains the Supporting Information for the manuscript entitled "Episodic evolution of a protracted convergent margin revealed by detrital zircon geochronology in the Greater Caucasus." A description of the contents of the dataset can be found in the main Word document: Vasey_CaucasusDZ_SuppTextCaptions.docxFunding provided by: National Science FoundationCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000001Award Number: 2050623Funding provided by: Geological Society of AmericaCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100005720Award Number: Funding provided by: Sigma XiaCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100011084Award Number: Funding provided by: American Research Institute of the South CaucasusCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100013241Award Number: Funding provided by: University of California, DavisCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100007707Award Number

Both “look and feel” matter: Essential factors for robotic companionship

Abstract: Physical embodiment of robots provides users with a social environment. To design social robots further to be accepted as our companions, we need to understand the essential factors and implement them and so, users get to bring them to their personal environments. To this aim, we focused on two important factors in robotic companionship: robot appearance (look) and emotional expression (feel). Twenty-one participants played an online game with the help from two humanoid robots, Nao (more human-like looking) and Darwin (less human-like looking). Participants interacted with each robot either with emotional words or without emotional words. Results show that only when the robot both looks more human-like and speaks with emotional expression, participants perceive it as their companion. Implications are discussed with future works